Well you wear what the fight demands. Most fights demand full healing, and a full resto build has me at about 5-10k more healpoints than a 21 resto 30 feral build. I'm still at around 90k.

Obviously if you're wearing mixed gear, then the fight demands it and your numbers drop down dramatically.

Against Moam a couple nights ago in mixed gear (mostly blues, mind you) I did 20k damage and 25k healing. The highest DPS and highest on heal meters were both at about 45-50k each wearing all epics. That felt pretty good and I felt I was using my character to the max of its abilities, as opposed to just staying in healer form the entire fight against a boss that's a dps race.

I'm not gonna lie to you and tell you I can heal "just as well" or that I'm a better healer with a feral spec, it's just really nice to be able to do a fight where more healing is wasted and actually be able to contribute something.

"And I'm not talking about a druid who does nothing but sit in cat form and spam Shred, you can debate about that elsewhere. I'm talking about situations (especially with healing rotations) when you have enough healing and you could use a little DPS boost as opposed to a druid who just spams rank 5 HT.
"

You're a dumbass, stop posting please.

What amazing arguments you bring to the table.

/salute

I like how this started out as an interesting thread with solid numbers and diverse perspective and turned into a mishmash of informative posts and shitty flames.

If you (or anyone) are going to post, don't do so from the perspective of a righteous crusader expounding upon the One True Way to play your class. Why are you posting? Are you posting to add to a discussion, and maybe to learn from it with some humility, or are you posting to enlighten the other poor posters who sadly have been forced to trudge through their dreary existences without the benefit of your wisdom? We can always use more of the former, but keep the latter far away. Thanks.

Whillwin, you made me lol.

Whillwin: Read what you posted again, no really -- and just don't post again.

Let's look at what I was responding to:

Point #1: "I always overheal anyway, so why bother being able to heal for more?" Good druids vie for the top of the charts in healing done on most fights, and have single-digit overheal %.

Point #2: "Hi I'm going to argue semantics and explain how, yes, retaining 11% of some benefit is better than 0%!"

Point #3: A valid statement about innervate, which I responded to constructively, which you ignored.

Point #4: "I am a very important person in a very important guild so I'm right."

Sure, those points clearly deserved thoughtful and thorough responses.

"Last I checked it IS POSSIBLE to have too much healing, ever checked the Recap meters? But there's many situations when more DPS is exactly what the raid needs."

Those are my two quotes on the matter. What exactly is incorrect about either?

Those are both perfectly valid statements and I don't think anyone is taking issue with either.

Edit: Though, upon reflection, I disagree that innervate is useless pre-Huhuran. When we were learning Firemaw with MC-geared tanks, that was a very mana-intensive fight. Innervate really helped. Innervate helped on Rag, again, when we were doing it in the early days -- very useful at the end of the Sons phase. And, of course, the simple fact is that even if you don't have an "OMG innervate the priest or we'll wipe!!" moment on a boss fight, 6k mana on demand every 6 minutes is incredibly useful, even if you're just casting it on yourself on every other trash pull.

The problem with your argument Whilwin is that you're essentially saying "Why should I try to maximize my healing ability further when what I have is already good enough?"

The answer to that is simply "It's not always good enough." If it was, a raid could bring you as the only healer and do just fine. Or more realistically, at least one less healer and instead bring more dps.

I liked this thread and wish someone would delete all the crap posts in it.

Niwi, the main difference between shaman hybridity and druid hybridity is that druids have much more extensible hybrid status, but that extensibility is based entirely on already wearing the right gear when the situation arises mid-fight.

To answer your question:

In my mixed tank/dps/heal gear with 0/12/39 I'm at like 83K healpoints. In full healbot gear (what I wear 90% of the time in a raid) I'm at about 96K healpoints, again with 0/12/39 resto build.

In my mixed tank/dps/heal gear with 0/30/21 feral build I'm at about 75K healpoints. In full healbot gear, still with 0/30/21, I'm at about 89K healpoints.

A lot of long-term fight druid healing ability comes from 3 piece stormrage and reflection, which applies to either build.

Is full-on resto build better for long-term healing? Absolutely. Is it better enough to invalidate the theoretical utility of feral/healing builds? That will always be up for debate. I happen to think that I'm a good enough healer to conquer the limited challenges of my build in my primary role while being able to take vastly more enjoyment from playing the game with a feral/healing talent build.